It wasn’t all that long ago but seems to have been forgotten in the rush to declare the Conservative Party of the past the nasty party and its members, people who were barely seen to be human by the rest of the population. Really? How did that nasty, much-hated party of non-human aliens manage to win four elections, producing at least one landslide in 1983?

On June 9, the party led by Margaret Thatcher, took 397 seats to Labour’s 209 with the SDP Liberal Alliance managing 23. Michael Foot, presumably not wearing his famous donkey jacket, called the result a tragedy for the country. Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?